


this whiskey got me feelin' pretty

by thimble



Series: SASO 2017 [19]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-04
Updated: 2017-10-04
Packaged: 2019-01-09 02:30:23
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 10,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12267069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thimble/pseuds/thimble
Summary: There are some realizations that Aomine doesn't mind having. Welcomes them, in fact, depending on how greedy he's feeling at that moment. Point is, there's plenty of good surprises to be had, small pleasures but pleasures all the same, and Aomine, in theory, should be unable to get enough of them, if only there weren't also some unpleasant surprises in store for him that he had no way of being prepared for.For example, the one example that's throbbing in his mind and giving him a headache — because of course that guy's only ever been the personification of a migraine since they met — is the realization that he has one huge, stinking crush on a certain Himuro Tatsuya.[aohimu AU drabble dump for saso fills.01: oh my god i think i like you02: marry you03: come home04: act casual! (drenched in blood)05: cop neighbor06: 'til we ain't strangers anymore07: u got it bad08: you know my name09: don't play the song10: you will fall in love with me11: whose finger is this?12: i'm the villain in my own story13: if i had a heart]





	1. oh my god i think i like you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for [this](https://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/22249.html?thread=12006633#cmt12006633) prompt.

There are some realizations that Aomine doesn't mind having. Welcomes them, in fact, depending on how greedy he's feeling at that moment. Who wouldn't like remembering that they still had teriyaki leftovers in the fridge, allowing them to skip a conbini dinner for the nth night in a row? Who wouldn't like stumbling upon their old collection of gravure magazines under their childhood bed, almost in mint condition and only slightly sticky? Point is, there's plenty of good surprises to be had, small pleasures but pleasures all the same, and Aomine, in theory, should be unable to get enough of them, if only there weren't also some unpleasant surprises in store for him that he had no way of being prepared for.  
  
For example, the one example that's throbbing in his mind and giving him a headache — because of course that guy's only ever been the personification of a migraine since they met — is the realization that he has one huge, stinking crush on a certain Himuro Tatsuya.   
  
It lands on his lap like a term paper with a twenty-four hour deadline at some stupid party, of all places, the air filled with the smell of beer and faint B.O. from all the college kids dancing and mingling. He's sitting next to Himuro on the couch, discussing the finer points of their last game because both of them always had basketball on the brain. He notices his beer bottle's empty and moves to stand, and in comes Himuro, all valiant and heroic with his hand on Aomine's arm, saying shit like, "oh, let me," in a tone which should be reserved for the chicks and suckers that fall for his charm, which shouldn't include Aomine but does now, apparently, and then he's the one standing, giving Aomine a magnificent view of the way his jeans cling to the curve of his ass as he walks away. Aomine can't get Himuro's gaze out of his head: the lowered lids, the long lashes, the gentle concern like he'd clued in that Aomine was too tipsy to get up himself, and the spot on his arm where Himuro had touched him is burning in a way that has nothing to do with his mild alcohol allergy and oh. Oh no. Oh god, he's coming back.   
  
Himuro's coming back from the war-torn battlefield that lay beyond the ping pong table and he looks all flushed and gorgeous from sweat, which is so colosally unfair in more ways Aomine can imagine, and then he's sitting besides Aomine again, closer, this time, close enough for their thighs to touch, and then he's wrapping Aomine's fingers around a beer bottle, which is cold and wet and smooth against Aomine's palm but does little to dissipate the heat from where their skin had touched.  
  
"That'll be your last one, if you want to make it to morning practice tomorrow," says Himuro in this fond, indulging voice, and shit fuck damn Aomine wants to kiss him. Really, truly kiss him; kiss the smirk off his mouth and the intensity from his stare, but Aomine's not far gone enough that he isn't aware that his mouth tastes like stale beer right now, and that while he doesn't have a romantic bone in his body, this room with all the drunk people and especially the couple in Naruto cosplay grinding in the corner, is no place for any kind of firsts. Himuro makes him wanna try to be better or whatever, and oh, oh god oh god, he has got it  _bad._


	2. marry you

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for [this](https://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/24808.html?thread=14973928#cmt14973928) prompt.

It's a fucking stupid idea, is what it is, but Aomine always seems to be full of those whenever Himuro's involved. It's yet to be determined if they're even his ideas, or ones implied to him by Himuro's evil wiles—the latter is incredibly fucking likely—though it doesn't really matter now, since they're getting done either way. Might be because he's fucking stupid too (or maybe just stupid over Himuro), and too damn easy to rope into trouble. He likes to make fun of the idiots in his friend circle for it because he's a goddamn hypocrite, all too aware that he's not any less susceptible to being challenged.   
  
That's what all this boils down to, anyway: too much adrenaline off his winnings (luck's always been on his side), too much giddiness over the idea of being in the so-called Sin City, and too much stupidity in regards to a certain beautiful asshole. He didn't stand a chance, after all the alcohol they've plied themselves with (though of course, Himuro shows no signs of having been affected by it, fuck his high tolerance.) Surrounded by the sounds of chatter and slot machines, warm from the shots still burning his throat, and under the hell-or-heaven glow of the casino chandelier, he looks straight at Himuro's visible eye and at all the lights reflected in it, and asks, consequence and decorum be damned, "wanna get married?"  
  
And that's the thing, okay. If Himuro were a little more sober, or a little less inclined to humor Aomine's idiocy, they could have saved themselves from this whole mess—but he's not. That's all Aomine thinks it is, all the way through looking for things that are old, new, borrowed, and blue, through leaning against each other as they staggered to the adjacent Elvis-themed chapel, through him donning a cheap rented tux jacket as Himuro, feeling playful or like a shithead or both, reaches for a bridal veil instead.  
  
Aomine's laughing into his neck as they fall in line, not really getting the full impact of the sight even when it's their turn, flanked by the random passersby they've gotten to stand as their witnesses, even when he's standing opposite Himuro at the altar with a portrait of Elvis officiating them, even when they've both said, "I do," after repeating the cookie-cutter vows.  
  
It's only when he's lifted the veil, when he sees how flushed Himuro is—different, Aomine can tell, from the tequila pink that sometimes blooms across Himuro's cheeks—and when Himuro holds his stare, simultaneously soft and intense, that his fingers tremble around the lace that frames Himuro's face.  
  
Himuro doesn't wait for the impending  _you may kiss the groom_  to kiss him, arms around his shoulders and everything. Aomine's hands are unusually reverent on Himuro's jaw as he kisses back, the rest of him still a little shaken from his earlier realization. Himuro's lips catch on his thumb as they pull apart, and they're smiling with full confidence and zero regret, as if he'd been planning on this all long when they booked the trip.  
  
Sometimes, Aomine forgets: Himuro's fucking stupid over him, too.


	3. come home

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for [this](https://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/24808.html?thread=14837480#cmt14837480) prompt.

Aomine used to think he was better off alone. Some mildly traumatic middle school years might do that to a guy, convinced by what seemed like the whole world that no one else could keep up with him, and resigned to the reality that he'll be lonely at the top or wherever else he finds himself when all's been said and done. He hadn't been happy about it—he'd been pretty fucking miserable, actually—but it wouldn't be a lie to say he hadn't exactly been looking for ways to change things. Contentment is a stretch; surrender is closer to the truth.  
  
He'd see the light or whatever soon enough, blinded by Kagami's brilliance and reduced to tears by Tetsu's resilience, but that had mostly been about his basketball ennui and not his propensity towards loneliness. It wasn't just his skill that set him apart, and one can even say that's the part with an easy fix. It's also that he can be a massive asshole, and he can't really blame anyone for not wanting to deal with that. No one can make him shape up but himself, as much as he's grateful to Satsuki for attempting.  
  
The solution is something he hadn't anticipated, but shouldn't have been much of a surprise considering fate's sense of humor: he just had to meet someone as difficult as he was.   
  
Enter one Himuro Tatsuya in all his poker-faced, pent-up glory, Aomine's opposite in basketball but his mirror in most other things. Sure, he doesn't have Himuro's wit, and he's not much of a tease, but they both have a tendency to be a defensive fuck, or to say awful shit they don't really mean. For all intents and purposes, they shouldn't work, but they do, because Aomine, for once in his life, has found someone who makes him want to try, and he likes to think Himuro feels the same.  
  
So being in love's a real treat and all, but it's done horrors for his independence. He's not better off alone but times like this he wishes he was, because then he wouldn't feel like crawling into an early grave from how much he misses the asshole when he goes abroad. It's never too long, not for a reasonable person, but Aomine is the farthest thing from that, and the distance only makes it worse.   
  
Makes him get drunk on cheap beer and drunk-dial Himuro, international charges be damned; makes Aomine jack off on the sheets that still smell like him as Himuro croons nonsense in his ear, voice going straight to Aomine's dick even without the vulgarities.   
  
But all that's almost understandable—he always did think with his lower regions more than his brain. He has no excuse, however, for the calendar he uses to mark each day Himuro's away; none at all for the piece of paper on which he scribbles an approximation of Himuro's name, because he isn't one for traditional romance but maybe can manage at least this.   
  
With bravado in one hand and the sign in the other, he heads to the airport on the day the calendar marks as Himuro's arrival, and waits, impatiently, for a familiar face to stand a head taller than most of the crowd.   
  
He's ready for this, he thinks, as the flights' other passengers start filing out of the terminal, each stranger pulling tight at the knot in his stomach.   
  
He's ready for this, because Himuro's made him suffer long enough.   
  
He's ready for this, he tells himself, to compensate for the fact he's not, because nothing could've prepared him for the way Himuro's eyes light up across the room when they meet his own, for the way Himuro starts to walk faster without bothering to hide his excitement, for the way Himuro nearly trips over his own suitcase because he can't look away from Aomine.   
  
Aomine's still snickering when Himuro finally reaches him, and they don't kiss or hug like Aomine imagined they would. Instead, Himuro's swatting him away, head bowed with rare embarrassment.   
  
"I don't see you for two months, and the first thing you do is laugh at me? Asshole," says Himuro, though he doesn't sound far from laughing himself. Aomine winds down to a grin, stepping closer to wrap his arms around Himuro from behind.   
  
"You missed me," he says, chin on Himuro's shoulder, lips close enough that he's kissing Himuro's cheek when he speaks.   
  
"Don't make me bring up your booty calls," warns Himuro, and then something catches his eye when he glances down. "What's this?"  
  
Aomine had completely forgotten about the sign, now crumpled in his palm from the force of his happiness. He's quick, but not quick enough to pocket it before Himuro steals it from his fingers, smoothing out the paper, and then it's his turn to snicker.   
  
"Aw, Daiki."  
  
"Shut up."  
  
"You even wrote it in English."  
  
"I said—ugh." He groans into Himuro's neck, face hot and hotter still when Himuro turns around and Himuro takes it between his hands. This time, they do kiss, no less soft for its brevity when they break apart.   
  
"I did miss you," says Himuro, right in front of everyone in the airport and what seems like the the whole world, and then Aomine's kissing him again, the taste of it sweeter after so much time spent alone.


	4. act casual! (drenched in blood)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for [this](https://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/22249.html?thread=11785961#cmt11785961) prompt.

There's something to be said about how cliche it all is—the rival agents outnumbering them ten to one, the abandoned warehouse with light barely leaking through rusty windows where the skirmish takes place, and even the way they press their backs against each other to cover their blind spots. At one point, they turn around so they're face to face while they're shooting at enemies from all sides, and it may not be practical in any way but Aomine would bet it looks damn cool. The only problem is how Himuro's right there for him to kiss but he can't right now, not if they want to make it out of here alive, so when they both run out of bullets they toss their guns away and launch themselves at their opponents, all fists and knives and nothing else. Sometimes they catch each other's eyes as Aomine's strangling a guy and Himuro's slashing blades at two nearby throats, giving Aomine incentive to twist the guy's neck instead to speed the whole affair along. Fighting with a hard-on may be on the unofficial list of inadvisable espionage things, but Aomine's always needed unique motivators to get through a mission.

Finally, after what seems like hours but likely only lasted minutes, they emerge victorious from the battle, bloody and grinning.

"Any of that yours?" asks Aomine, though he does give Himuro a quick scan for any injuries, right at the same time Himuro does it to him.

"No," says Himuro, shrugging off his suit jacket to reveal once-white shirt all bright red and dripping. Aomine thinks of closing the gap between them but Himuro beats him to it, stepping over bodies and puddles of bodily fluids to press Aomine against a crate and yank his shirt open, buttons popping off in another cliche.

"Impatient?" smirks Aomine, though he does shudder a little when Himuro licks his way up from his chest to his neck, cleaning up the blood on the way. His finish line is Aomine's mouth, their kiss hard and rough and tasting so strongly of metal that it's a bit like making out with the barrel of a Walther.

"We took too long," replies Himuro, always reliable with the impossible standards he sets on himself, even while he's palming Aomine's dick through blood-soaked pants. "Could've spent more time doing this."

"No time like the present," says Aomine, thrusting into Himuro's hand as Himuro grinds against his thigh, making the slight height difference work for them. His fingers fist in the hair at the back of Himuro's head, pulling him in closer to deepen their kiss as they settle into the right balance of rhythm and frriction, their skin slick with sweat and other people's innards. It's by far the messiest sex they've ever had, surrounded by empty cartridges and carnage, and it would've ranked as one of the best ones too, if it hadn't for the sound of someone clearing her throat behind them, her tone sounding far more exasperated than surprised.

"Dai-chan," says Satsuki, flanked by the clean-up crew who are all doing an exceptionalal job of not staring at their crotches. "Is it so hard to make yourself respectable? Honestly."

"Ooh, you're in trouble," says Himuro, shameless as he steps back like he hadn't been caught in the act too. Satsuki is not so impressed.

"I'm talking to you too, Himuro-san." Her hands are on her waist and her forehead vein is throbbing, so Aomine hopes Himuro takes that as a sign not to be a smartass. "Neither of you could wait until you were back at base?"

"You know how it is, Satsuki," says Aomine, before Himuro can reply with something worse. "Adrenaline rush."

"That," says Himuro, and Aomine moves far too slowly in clamping a hand over his mouth, "and because we're just really hor—"

Satsuki glares at them both—unfair, when Aomine's been trying to diffuse the situation—but at least seems to have finished saying her piece (that, or she'd given up trying to reason with them) as she gives the clean-up crew their assignments.

"What is wrong with you," sighs Aomine, which might be hypocritical, but he's usually the one causing trouble. Himuro only laughs, doing up the buttons of Aomine's suit jacket to compensate for his missing shirt buttons, so gentle and so stark a contrast to the killing machine Aomine knows lurks underneath. He cups Himuro's cheek in one hand, smearing the blood still on it as Himuro leans into his touch, smile coy as he replies, "aren't you always telling me to be honest?"


	5. cop neighbor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for [this](https://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/22249.html?thread=11785961#cmt11785961) prompt.

It would be an understatement to say that Aomine has noticed his neighbor 'on occasion', because that happens to be every occasion they encounter each other outside their houses, whether it's just on the front yard or in the convenient store both reaching for the last bottle of peach tea. Aomine is a dumbass sometimes, but he's not oblivious to flirting, especially when he can't keep his eyes off Himuro as it happens. Himuro, bending down instead of crouching to give Aomine a perfect view of his ass while he plucks weeds from his lawn, or Himuro, letting his fingers flit over Aomine's wrist as he relinquishes the bottle with an, "it's all yours," that's far too sultry to be happening while grocery shopping.   
  
So, yeah, Aomine notices him even with the most minimal effort on Himuro's part, and maybe he's got a little crush, who cares? It's not that he thinks Himuro is out of his league; he's just far too busy with cases and patrol to spare a thought for dating at the moment. Nothing out of the ordinary here, just a guy with work taking precedent over his life like most of the population.   
  
At least, until Himuro and work intersect in the absolute worst way he can imagine.   
  


* * *

  
  
He's in his bedroom, only half-paying attenton to an NBA rerun because his sleeping schedule's shot to hell, when he hears it from the neighboring house. A scream, then several, like someone's fending off an axe-wielding murderer like some kind of horror shit that shouldn't be happening in real life and definitely not in his quiet neighborhood. Instinct has him leaping out of bed and common sense has him taking his gun along, heartbeat reaching critical mass because that's coming from Himuro's house, isn't it? What if some kind of ikemen serial killer's gotten to him before Aomine could ask him out and maybe feel him up a little at the movies? What if he's too late for a dramatic rescue?  
  
All of this is racing through his mind as he kicks down Himuro's front door, rushing to where the screaming is coming from, hoping against hope that he won't find Himuro in pieces all over the floor. He kicks down another door, this time to what seems like the master bedroom, points his gun and shouts, "freeze!" all dashing-like, except—  
  
—there's no would-be murderer, no butchery going on. Just Himuro, naked and bent over with his ass to wall, fucking what looks like a large black dildo. Or, well, he looks like he's mid-fuck, because he'd frozen in place just as Aomine demanded, lips parted and hair mussed into sweaty locks framing his face.   
  
"Uh," says Aomine.  
  
Himuro doesn't pry himself off the dildo or make an attempt to stand up. He just fucking stays there, attached to the wall, the corners of his mouth curving up into an unruffled smile.   
  
"Hello, officer, what seems to be the problem?"  
  
"Uh," says Aomine, again. "I heard some screaming, so I thought—"  
  
"Valiant of you," says Himuro, subtly rolling his hips around the dildo even with Aomine watching. "As you can see, nothing's wrong, I'm just in the middle of something. I'll try to keep it down."  
  
"Thanks." Aomine swallows but it doesn't help the sudden dryness of his mouth. "I'm gonna go now."  
  
"Make sure to close the door on your way out?"  
  
"I kind of... kicked it..."  
  
Himuro laughs, though it's a little breathless because, God, he'd started to move back against the dildo again. "We'll figure out something tomorrow. I'll see you then."  
  
"Yeah," says Aomine, making a hasty exit because what the actual fuck and also because there's a bulge in his crotch that's  _entirely_  a certain neighbor's fault.  
  


* * *

  
  
Tomorrow comes, and it happens to be Aomine's day-off. He's in half a mind to go in anyway, grateful for any distraction that'll wipe The Dildo Incident from his mind, but his inherent laziness won out. So he's stuck at home, waiting for Himuro to contact him about the broken doors, trying not to jack off in the meantime because he doesn't need Himuro walking in on him as a form of revenge or something. Morning passes by, and so does the afternoon. He's wondering if Himuro had somehow acquired some shame during the course of the day and decided to never see Aomine again, which would be fair, but then the doorbell rings and he's on his feet and answering it too quickly.  
  
"Hey," says Himuro, fresh and put-together. Aomine still can't believe he'd seen him naked and nothing had come out of it.   
  
"Hey," he says, grimacing at himself. "You, uh, didn't tell me what to do about the doors."  
  
"It's all taken care of. I had some repairmen come in earlier. I thought you might stop by... are you avoiding me?"  
  
"Huh? No, I wasn't—" Well, maybe a little. "I just, uh..."  
  
"Quite an encounter we had last night," says Himuro, and Aomine's ears start to burn just remembering it.   
  
"You could say that."  
  
Himuro sighs, making a face that almost seems disappointed. "I'll get right to the point. Did I blow my chances with you, after you'd seen me that way?"  
  
The words knock the air out of Aomine's lungs, and he has to remind himself to breathe to be able to reply. "What? Blow your chances... what?"  
  
"I'd been waiting to see if you'd ask first," says Himuro, not looking so unbothered anymore. He looks thoroughly chastised, even if Aomine hadn't said anything to prompt it. "But be honest: did it turn you off?"  
  
"You're unbelievable," blurts out Aomine, amazed that he's having this conversation at all. "How could anyone be—I mean, it wasn't bad. To look at."  
  
Himuro seems to take a moment to process that, staring at Aomine as if searching for signs that he's lying. And then, slowly, terrifyingly, his smile returns. "Is that so?"  
  
"Don't look so thrilled about it," says Aomine, finding it easier to talk now that the hard part's out of the way. "It was still fucking weird to stumble onto that. You might've given someone else a heart attack, and then I'd have to arrest you for manslaughter."  
  
Now, Himuro's actually laughing, his hand touching Aomine's arm like an offering. "I won't mind if it's you doing the arresting, officer. But maybe we can save that for a later date. I was thinking..." He lets his fingertips slide down to take Aomine's hand in his, idly playing with it as he talks. "Dinner and a movie for the first?"  
  
Aomine doesn't have to think about it. He doesn't even think of last night, the memory of it temporarily bested by the present. "You've got yourself a deal."


	6. 'til we ain't strangers anymore

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> remixed for [this](https://saso-afterhours.dreamwidth.org/55004.html) fill.

Really, Aomine shouldn't be here right now. He should be in the locker room, listening to the coach's last minute pointers, or on the court, doing warm-ups with his team. Inside the stadium, the crowd is buzzing, high on anticipation; outside of it, he's the same, his skin thrumming with the itch to just get in there and  _play._ But first, he has something to attend to. First, he has someone he needs to see.  
  
"You're late," he tells Himuro when he spots him at the entrance. It's far too late, and too futile, to pretend he hasn't been waiting all this time.   
  
At the accusation, Himuro only tilts his head and smiles wryly. "I think I'm just in time." His gaze shifts to Aomine in his jersey jacket, biting his lip in a manner Aomine will take as appreciative. "Red really works for you."  
  
"Then you better look at me the whole time, pretty boy," says Aomine, a request disguised as a challenge. "Nowhere else."  
  
Himuro doesn't quite laugh—it takes more than that to earn it, but his smile does widen the slightest bit. "I'll do my best. I don't have to tell you to do the same, do I?"  
  
"No." Aomine grins. "No, you don't."  
  


* * *

  
  
Really, he shouldn't be so nervous. It's true, that he's never done this before, but that's never scared him with anything else, and it's true that this often makes or breaks a relationship with a lot of people (or so he's heard), but he doesn't think it applies to whatever he has with Himuro. He wouldn't be in this position if he didn't trust Himuro in the first place.   
  
The position, being, flat on his back as Himuro presses him into the mattress, one hand on his chest and the other with its fingers inside him.   
  
"Tell me if it hurts," says Himuro, soft and attentive, as he slips another finger alongside the first two. "If I need to slow down..."  
  
Aomine shakes his head, his own fingers white-knuckled on the sheets. "'It's the other way around, you're too slow. I'm not gonna break, so just get on with it."  
  
Himuro thrusts all three fingers into him one final time, possibly just to make him moan, before pulling them out to slick himself up. "If you say so." The words are deceptively calm, as if his own hard-on doesn't betray his own desire for urgency.   
  
He lines himself up, maddeningly careful as he pushes inside Aomine. It takes the two of them a moment to adjust, to regain their breaths.   
  
Aomine thinks he's doing pretty well—that is, until Himuro starts to rock his hips, and the cocktail of pleasure and pain paired with sight of Himuro above him is enough to do him in, groaning as he wraps his legs around Himuro's waist, his arms around Himuro's neck.   
  
"Tatsu," he says, strained, the name only previously thought and never spoken. "I'm—"  
  
"Ssh," whispers Himuro, lips soft against Aomine's cheek as he keeps at a steady pace. "Open your eyes."  
  
Aomine barely manages to, his eyes lidded when they do, but that's enough for Himuro. A palm wanders under Aomine's nape, maybe partly to support him, partly to keep his gaze where it is.   
  
"That's it, Daiki. Just keep looking at me."  
  
So that's what Aomine does, until he can't anymore.

  


* * *

  
  
Really, he should've expected this. When the two of them spend more time with their clothes off rather than on, when they fuck more than they talk, there's no other way it could've gone.   
  
Doesn't mean it doesn't hurt like a bitch when Himuro smiles at him when he means the opposite. Doesn't mean it doesn't sting when Himuro tells him it's not worth it to keep trying.   
  
"Don't pretend you don't think the same way," says Himuro, retrieving his clothes from Aomine's closet, haphazardly throwing them in an overnight bag. Aomine follows him out to the living room, with half a mind to remind him he still has a toothbrush in Aomine's bathroom sink.   
  
"That's bullshit and you know it." Aomine's hands are fists at his sides, because the worst part of all of this is how he can't just reach out, grab Himuro's wrist, and turn him around so he can— "Look at me, Tatsu."   
  
He regrets it as soon as he asks. Himuro glances over his shoulder, a hand on the knob, and his eyes tell Aomine everything he needs to know even before Himuro tears his gaze away, not slamming the door, but letting the lock click silently into place.


	7. u got it bad

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> remixed for [this](https://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/22341.html?thread=13043781#cmt13043781) fill.

Basketball hotshot or not, Aomine's not perfect. God knows he has a lot of shortcomings, but everyone who knows him can attest to what might be the most glaring of them all: he has trouble shaking bad habits.   
  
The pattern started pretty early, to his chagrin. As much as he'd like to forget it, Satsuki still teases him about being a crybaby every now and then, because it did take a while for him not to simply start bawling at every minor inconvenience, his cheeks, still round with baby fat, constantly wet with tears and snot.  
  
Not all of them are as harmless as that one, though. There's also his tendency to say the worst things, at the worst times, only partly unintentional. Somehow, he'd turned from a crybaby to the one making people cry, and even if they've all grown thicker skin since then, the hurt he'd caused those he actually cared about remains fresh in his memory, reminding him to be a better person or to die trying.   
  
And then there are habits that only really hurt himself, and those are the hardest ones to get rid of.   
  
Himuro never should have ended up as one of them.   
  
There's no use dwelling on it; it's been a while since they decided (or since Himuro somehow convinced him, too) that it wasn't working out anymore. There's no use thinking of what he could've said or done to make Himuro think otherwise; Himuro's the only person who dwells on shit longer than he does. Whatever had been going through his mind the moment he thought it was over, it wasn't anything Aomine could've talked him out of (and Himuro had always been better at words, anyway.)  
  
There's no goddamn point to all of this, but.   
  
He still can't bring himself to get rid of the half-empty bottle of shampoo Himuro had left at his shower. He still can't erase Himuro's face from his fantasies when he's jerking off. He still can't stop scrolling to Himuro's name in his contacts list, wondering if he'll ever get the courage to press down on it (or, better yet, delete it.) The time for arbitrary conversations between them has passed.  
  
Himuro doesn't seem to have gotten the memo.   
  
Aomine sees the photo in his notifications first—one of his magazine covers, probably the most flattering one—and then the message that accompanies it.   
  
you're all over the place these days, it says, and his breath catches in his throat when he sees who it's from.  
  
Maybe today's the day. Maybe he can finally press down on Himuro's name and hear his voice, even if he has no idea what to say.  
  
They exchange a few words: sparse, precious ("you bought that magazine, huh?" "I did."), making Aomine susceptible to impatience. What he wants to hear, even if the message already confirmed it, is whether or not   
  
"you still think about me, huh?"  
  
because as carelessly brave as he is to make the call, he's not quite brave enough to to admit:  
  
_'cause I still think about you, too._


	8. you know my name

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> remixed for [this](https://saso-afterhours.dreamwidth.org/3835.html) fill.

His patience is wearing thin—much like the gossamer material worn by the woman making eyes at him across the table, the dress leaving little to the imagination. If it were up to him, they'd have moved somewhere more private an hour ago, but as pleasurable as his business may be at times, work is still work, and work comes first. The purpose of his visit to this particular casino is ingrained in his bones, wired in each nerve ending under his skin, so he couldn't forget it was a job if he tried.  
Unfortunately.  
  
A job that, full of thrills and spills as it is, rarely tests his patience because there's always some other bastard to shoot or some luxury car to chase. Factors that are currently missing, despite earlier reports claiming that the target will definitely show up today, swear on the nearest mother's grave.  
  
It's not often that headquarters are wrong about their information, but he's ready to rub it in their collective face and call it a night when a heavy hand drapes across his shoulder, accompanied by a voice like velvet in his ear. Himuro resists every instinct to flip the motherfucker on his back to see—  
  
 _tall, dark, looks like he can wreck you in more ways than one_  
  
—a guy who fits the mark's description to a T.  
  
His answering smirk returns the flirtation, streaked with self-satisfaction. "Sorry, there's nothing more to see here." He lays down his cards to reveal a full house, calm as the rest of the table's chips are added to his collection. Gossamer Gown gives him a dirty look, and it splits his neutral expression into a grin as he turns his full attention to the target.  
  
"Looks like you're my lucky charm." He clicks his own martini with the mark's glass, licking his lips after a single sip. "The name's Himuro. Himuro Tatsuya. And you are?"   
  
“Glad I could help." The mark winks, after which he gives Himuro something temporary to call him. "I’m Aomine. Daiki, if you’re in the mood."  
  
The mark isn't subtle—Himuro has to wonder how he got to this position of notoriety when he can barely speak without dripping intention—as his eyes flicker up and down Himuro's form. Doubtful that he was simply admiring the cut of his suit. He lifts the drink to his lips and looks like he wants nothing more than to drink something else more solid, more sentient, though Himuro can hardly fault him. His relaxed ignorance is woven of lies but there might be an inkling of truth in the flirtation. Just an inkling.  
  
"I'm in the mood," he says, deliberate as his eyes return the favor, taking in the casual way Aomine wears the suit, draped on his form and tucked in corners just enough for his build to show through. It's loose otherwise, in the shoulders and the elbows, a tie foregone in favor of his shirt unbuttoned at the top, like he'd just rolled out of bed like that and strolled in without even fixing his hair. Himuro doesn't fault him for that either.  
  
It's a good look.  
  
Aomine merely smirks as Himuro drinks him in. "So, Himuro, brings you here tonight? Business or pleasure?”  
  
"The two aren't mutually exclusive," replies Himuro, setting the martini glass on the table after downing the rest of its contents. "Don't you agree? One can argue that all business can be pleasurable when spent in the right company."  
  
Preferably at night, in private, with a sturdy bed and a floor that's made to be littered with expensive clothing.  
  
He's certain Aomine's entertaining the same thoughts. Most of his marks are known for their vices, and Himuro is all too happy to oblige. "There's a suite upstairs and a bottle of Don Perignon with my name on it. Care to join me?"   
  
Aomine makes a show of pretending to contemplate it, clicking his tongue. "I’m not much of a champagne man, but I think I’ll take you up on that.”  
  
Inch by breathtaking inch, Aomine is leaning closer, close enough for Himuro to catch a whiff of the cologne sprayed haphazardly over his clothes. It's overpowering, just like Aomine's presence, commanding the room's lighting to pan across the sharp planes of his face. His grin is not at all discreet, confident of what he's about to get like a cat prematurely licking cream off its whiskers. Himuro will make certain he gets it, because he's a people-pleaser at his core. Of course, for Aomine it will come at a fatal price, but Himuro too is confident that whatever he has to offer is worth a one-way trip to the morgue.  
  
He can work out up to six hours a day, and that's when he isn't jetsetting around the world chasing terrorists through the token exotic city's rooftops, all while on foot; it would be a damn shame if his ass isn't absolutely to  _die_  for.  
  
"Special treatment? I'm touched." His voice is innuendo condensed in a bottle as he adds, "I'll make sure you won't regret your generosity."  
  
As they stand Himuro is mildly surprised to see Aomine retreat to his own personal space. He doesn't feel Aomine's palm on the small of his back, nor Aomine's eyes undressing him on the short trip to the room. The twosome in the elevator with them are less mindful of their surroundings, the man's fingers familiarizing themselves with the edges of the woman's skirt, which is why Himuro becomes increasingly impressed at Aomine's restraint.  
  
Misleadingly so, because once they're inside it takes less than a second for Aomine to crowd him against the door and pin him there with his broader frame, for Aomine's lips to crash against his to finally seal their dwindling proximity.  
  
"Compensating for not coping a feel earlier?" Himuro's laughter, like sea breeze and wind chimes, is as purposefully distracting as his hands sliding under Aomine's suit jacket, so that a thin layer of cotton is the only thing between skin and skin. A double-sided body inspection, since it's rare that marks don't carry their own weapons, but it can pass for a more simple-minded, hormonal cause. "Want me to fix that?"   
  
But Aomine doesn't get to reply, not in a way that can continue their charade. He pulls away abruptly, though it isn't pulling away as much as he shoves Himuro roughly to get distance between them that they'd worked  _so_  hard to eliminate, almost as if—  
  
Himuro stares down the semi-automatics suddenly pointed at him, produced by Aomine from somewhere on his person, confirming his suspicions. Aomine would've fired by now, Himuro's certain, if two similar pistols were not also cocked in his direction, one aimed at his head, the other at his heart.  
  
"You've got to be kidding me," says Aomine, disbelief in his voice that Himuro feels in kind, but refuses to show on his face. "Think I can say anything to make you go down quieter?"  
  
"I doubt it," says Himuro as they circle each other, their gazes locked and vigilant. "But you're welcome to try."  
  
"I'm faster than you." The way Aomine says it has no trace of arrogance, told as a statement of fact. "Still want to risk it?"  
  
Himuro's eyes narrow, always having been ill-equipped to deal with notions of inferiority. "I'll take my chances."   
  
Aomine groans, and it's hard to tell if it's from exasperation or something else, but Himuro doesn't get to dwell on this because Aomine's throwing his guns to the side, then prying Himuro's off his fingers before tossing him to the bed like he's a ragdoll, all in five seconds or less.  
  
"Let's talk about who gets to kill who when we're through with this, yeah?" says Aomine, having crawled over him so his mouth's wet and ragged against Himuro's throat. Himuro, meanwhile, busies his hands with tearing off Aomine's clothes, unfortunately no less captive to the whims of his nether regions as Aomine seems to be.  
  
"If we get any talking done at all," he says, head tilted back, a dangerous smile in his voice when it goes breathless,  _"Daiki."_


	9. don't play the song

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for [this](https://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/25713.html?thread=15871345#cmt15871345) prompt.

Aomine supposes that if there's anything that rubbed off on him after dating Himuro, it'd be the masochistic streak. He doesn't have any other explanation for staying in on a Friday night, still in last night's stained boxers and nothing else, with no one on his bed for company save from his laptop. While seemingly everyone else is in the city and painting it red, he's indoors, wallowing in misery and the static from the speakers. The concert hasn't started yet but the livestream has, so it's only white noise from the chatter and sound tests that's filling up his walls. It's grating, but he knows that he'd prefer this to what's coming next.   
  
Not that the thought's enough to keep him from closing the tab, or getting up and going out, or literally anything else apart from subjecting himself to this. By this, as if on cue, he means the stage lights dimming, the crowd screaming in anticipation, and the first few chords from an electric guitar reverberating through the stadium and, by proxy, his bedroom.   
  
And after the chords comes a voice, and Aomine nearly shuts the laptop screen then and there. He doesn't, though, because he's got this notion that all he needs is closure to get over something that ended months ago. The faster he feels nothing over watching this, the faster he can move on, or whatever the fuck that means.   
  
Not that it seems to be working, because the longer he stares at the screen, at the spotlight crowning Himuro as he croons into the mic, the tighter his chest seems to feel. And the longer he listens as Himuro sings about lost love and last smiles, the more he wants to hurl the laptop, or himself, out of the window.   
  
But he stays, gaze intent, as Himuro starts to move across the stage, picking the mic stand up from the floor, reaching his hand out to fans, and, in a move that has Aomine swearing aloud, draping himself over his lead guitarist.   
  
Nothing about the performance indicates that he's doing this to spite Aomine personally, but that's how Aomine takes it, however irrational it is. He's not a rational person in the first place, and Himuro's always made him a little stupid.  
  
So here he is now, putting himself through watching someone he hasn't gotten over tell the world that he'd gotten over Aomine, in songs that are a bit too mournful, in lyrics that hit a bit too close to home. Aomine hadn't listened to the album at all before now, which is another mistake on top of everything. He's not ready for this at all.  
  
He's not ready, and as the camera gives him a close-up of Himuro's face, smiling in a way Aomine hasn't been able to manage these days, he doubts he will ever be.


	10. you will fall in love with me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for [this](https://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/23665.html?thread=14233969#cmt14233969) prompt.

_**day**_  
  
Aomine has a reputation for being a bit of an idiot, so a part of him forgives himself for not noticing it sooner. A bigger part, though, the one that's grown up and a little more accepting of the consequences, is painfully aware that with everything Himuro has shown him thus far, the signs have been flashing for weeks, months now. Not in his peripheral, nothing he should've missed—they might as well have been flashing bright neon for how they should've strained his eyes, but didn't. Maybe there's still selfishness he can't shake, no matter how hard he's been trying, an inherent refusal to consider someone else.   
  


 

  
  
 _ **dusk**_  
  
It starts, predictably so, with the little things. Just when everything's going smoothly, or, as smooth as they could be with personalities like him and Himuro, the fissures start to show, cracks in their foundations they haven't been paying attention to.   
  
Or maybe Himuro's been paying too much attention, and Aomine just hasn't been doing it enough.  
  
The points of contention wouldn't be important, on any other day, or with any other pair but themselves. It's in the way Aomine would complain, and the way Himuro would press his lips into something sharper than a smile, venom-sweet when he says, "I think you had it coming."  
  
Or the way Aomine would make an offhand remark he doesn't mean, not really, about how difficult Himuro's being, expecting a rebuttal, and the way Himuro would smile again, loss-bitter when he says, "I think I had that coming."  
  


 

  
  
 _ **night**_  
  
Completely out of options, Aomine brings it up with Kagami. It hadn't been why he'd called Kagami to a street court, completely out of nowhere—he'd just wanted to let out some steam—but it still slips from his mouth, not completely out of nowhere.  
  
"He's being a dick," he says, passing the ball a little too harshly, forgetting that it's a one-on-one. Kagami instinctively goes for a dunk, but returns to his senses once the ball hits the ground, as if he'd needed to process it.   
  
"You sure it isn't you?"  
  
"It's not." Aomine scowls, amends, "not more than usual."  
  
The defeat must be palpable in his voice, because Kagami seems to understand immediately. Aomine isn't sure if it means Kagami knows Himuro too well, or knows him too well.  
  
"I'm not gonna tell you to stick around," says Kagami after a moment's deliberation, as he walks to pick up the ball. There's a bite in Aomine's voice when he responds.  
  
"You're shit at giving advice."  
  
"I mean," continues Kagami, passing him back the ball. "It's up to you decide if it's worth the effort. Don't have to tell you I think he is, but—" His face scrunches up, and he scratches his head irritably. "You're right, I'm shit at this. Do what you wanna."  
  
Aomine's fingertips dig into the ball's surface, almost as if inviting the pattern to mark his skin.   
  
"Yeah, I think will."  
  


 

  
  
 _ **dawn**_  
  
The next time Himuro tries it with him, Aomine thinks it time to call him on his bullshit.   
  
"If you think I'm caving first, you need to get your head checked."  
  
Himuro's eyes widen, just a fraction, just enough to give away his surprise. "I don't know what you mean."  
  
"All this time I thought it was my fault, and maybe it is." The honesty burns his tongue, but he can't stop now. "If you want to end it, just spit it out."  
  
"I..." Himuro stares at him, wearing no more smiles with varying flavors of intention. "I don't."  
  
"Yeah, thought so." Aomine swallows; saying it had been part bravado. "Then what is it? You're scared I wanna stick around?" Kagami's words had been crude, but they seem to strike a chord. Himuro looks away, and Aomine keeps going. "You're scared I'm still here, 'cause you think I should've gone by now."  
  
Himuro has no reply for him. It's just as well, because Aomine isn't done.   
  
"That's not up to you to decide, asshole." Sick of their eyes not meeting, Aomine reaches out, hands on Himuro's shoulders to keep him from drifting. "Well? Say something."  
  
Aomine feels the tremble under his palms before he sees it, and it's only when Himuro rests his forehead against his collarbones and he feels the warm dampness on his shirt that he realizes what's happening.   
  
"Hey," he says, uncertain, out of his element even as his arms rearrange to wrap around Himuro instead. "Don't—you know I'm shit at this."  
  
Himuro, miraculously, starts to laugh, soft and split down the middle, and Aomine's heart starts to pound right under Himuro's lips with the knowledge that he still has a chance to piece it back together. "You're doing perfectly fine, Daiki."


	11. whose finger is this?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for [this](https://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/22249.html?thread=11785961#cmt11785961) prompt.

Himuro's different, these days. Good different—not enough to be completely unrecognizable from the guy Aomine had fallen for, but more relaxed, less cagey. More likely to let people in than shut them out, less likely to go to bed angry and wake up angrier in turn. Aomine thinks it definitely hasn't been a one way-street; he isn't objective enough to determine everything that's changed with him, but somehow being with Himuro had made him more patient and less prone to pissing people off just because he could. It's kind of nice, or whatever, to be with someone who makes him better, and it's nicer still to know that he's making Himuro better too.  
  
There's few secrets between them, now, with all the times they'd stay up just talking in the dark about what they'd like to do, or  _who_  they'd like to do. (Aomine even knows the nitty gritty of The Kagami Situation, including details he could have done without.) Himuro's also entrusted him Aomine with his phone password so he could take calls if Himuro's otherwise preoccupied, which is a big step for such an evasive guy, but, in retrospect, is also how a certain problem began.  
  
It's less of a problem and more a predicament, actually, because the former suggests that Aomine somehow had a hand in delivering it to his lap, and the latter absolves him of all blame. He just found himself staring at it in the face, with no warning, or found himself staring at Himuro's face—hair characteristically hiding half of it, but noticeably younger, before all his features sharpened and made him into the heartbreaker he is today. Hopefully Aomine's heart will be spared, but that's beside the point.  
  
The point being that Aomine has stumbled onto an old picture on Himuro's camera roll that inspires equal parts horror and arousal, and that's how Himuro finds Aomine after stepping out of the shower: his dick, half-hard, while the rest of him could've been pictured beside the word 'panic' in the dictionary.  
  
"What is this?" says Aomine, shoving the phone into Himuro's line of sight, too alarmed to enjoy the droplets of water still cascading down Himuro's skin, seeping into the towel wrapped loosely around his waist...  _damn it, Daiki, focus._  
  
Himuro, however, seems impassive, regarding the phone and the picture on it with amusement and curiosity. "I would've thought you'd recognize your boyfriend in a photograph."  
  
"You know what the hell I meant," says Aomine, still pointing to the phone. "Why do you have a photo of yourself like this?" By like this, he's referring how the Himuro in the picture is looking at the camera with lidded eyes and a sated expression, the highlight of which is the come streaked on his face and hair like he's some kind of glazed donut. And that's not even the worst part.   
  
The worst part is the way picture!Himuro's mouth is delicately held open by a thumb slipped between his lips like he's not done sucking just yet, and the thumb is connected to a wrist and around that wrist is a telltale rainbow wristband.   
  
"And whose finger is this!?"  
  
"Why are you asking me questions you already know the answer to?"  
  
"No!" exclaims Aomine, fighting a full-body shudder. "You told me you met him in America. You didn't tell me you gave him a blowjob."   
  
"Judging by your reaction now," says Himuro, calmly, "it's a good thing I didn't."  
  
"That's like fucking my big brother!"   
  
"If I recall correctly, you've confessed to wanting to fuck  _my_  brother..."  
  
"Doesn't count," says Aomine, nearly in tears. "You want to fuck him too!"  
  
"Fair point," says Himuro, sounding like he's trying not to laugh  _too_  hard. "Does it really bother you that much? I can delete the picture."  
  
"No." Aomine shakes his head, dragging a hand down his face as he sets the phone down. "It's just  _weird._  I never want to think of Nijimura-senpai's dick again."  
  
"You're thinking about it now, aren't you?"  
  
"You're the fucking worst. Why do you even have it saved?"  
  
"Well," says Himuro, picking up the phone to look at the picture again. He smirks at Aomine, and it's all a bit much, with the picture still stark in Aomine's mind and Himuro standing there in nothing but a towel.   
  
"I thought I looked nice."  
  
"Ugh," says Aomine, loathe to admit  _yeah, you did_ , as he pulls Himuro towards him, grabbing at his ass as his towel flutters to the ground. "Why do I even like you," he mumbles against Himuro's lips, and Himuro responds by palming at the front of his crotch where his previously half-hard dick has swelled to a full-fledged boner.   
  
"Because," says Himuro, ripe with certainty, "I can do this."  
  
And then he drops to his knees, hair still damp between Aomine's fingers as Aomine holds onto it for purchase, and Aomine would be the first to say that that isn't the only reason by a long shot, but Himuro's making a damn good case for himself and who's Aomine to argue with that?


	12. i'm the villain in my own story

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for [this](https://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/22249.html?thread=12006633#cmt12006633) prompt.

No one's born knowing how to hurt people. No one's born wanting to, either, though this is contested in his psychology class, but Aomine's always gone with his gut no matter what books or experts say, and isn't that just precisely the problem? He wasn't born equipped with the wrong words at the wrong time, but plenty of other people seemed to have gotten a memo he hadn't about not accidentally alienating everyone he cares about. If he were younger, he'd blame it all on this missing information, this metaphorical Growing Up class he didn't attend, but he's matured enough since then to realize that some (most) of the fault lies with him.   
  
Because at the very least, he thinks about things more than others would give him credit for — about the ways others could and do disappoint him, and about the ways he could make them feel terrible for it. It's never too premeditated; many of the worst things he's ever said were spur of the moment mistakes he wishes he could take back the moment he said them, but that didn't make them hurt any less for the ones on the receiving end.   
  
It takes time to acknowledge these, and patience to sort through them all and figure out when and where he'd gone wrong, but he didn't spend all that time skipping class and loitering around on the school rooftop for nothing. Dwelling on shortcomings is a well-practiced art only professionals should attempt, and Aomine's a pioneer in the field.  
  
He'd think about the way Satsuki raised her arm to cover her eyes to mask her tears as she ran from him; he'd think about the look on Tetsu's face that one regrettable day in the rain. He'd think about how he'd failed his friends, and less about how they'd failed him. But old habits are hard to break, and when confronted with someone teetering on the edge his first instinct, even now, is to push them and see how they'd react to the fall.  
  
Which is not any way to treat anyone he's with, and certainly not Himuro, who doesn't fall off edges as much as he jumps off them, destructive in a way that Aomine recognizes in himself.   
  
("I could leave."  
  
"You could, huh? What's stopping you?")  
  
He should've grown out of daring other people to stop loving him, but maybe there's always going to be a part of him that wants to know if he's worth staying for. Maybe he's always going to be a little bit broken from before.  
  
But, as he stares at that wounded look Himuro wears so well, that doesn't mean he should stop trying.   
  
"I didn't mean that," he says, the words tripping over each other in his haste to get them out. He repeats, reaching out and wondering if Himuro will shrug off his hand, "I didn't mean that."  
  
Himuro doesn't. He doesn't move at all. He doesn't ask what Aomine meant, or why he said it, then, and the expression in his eyes changes to something close to understanding.   
  
Maybe he's used to hurting other people too.   
  
And maybe he's deliberating it now.   
  
Finally, after a short eternity of a motionless silence, he eases Aomine's hand off his shoulder, fingers wrapping around Aomine's wrist then shifting down, not quite holding it but not quite letting go, either.   
  
He glances down at the way his thumb is stroking the lines on Aomine's palm, but Aomine keeps his gaze on his face.   
  
"I didn't mean that, either," says Himuro in a whisper, still tracing furious patterns into Aomine's hand as if to rearrange the lines into ones that could accommodate him better. Aomine wants to say something trite, like,  _I'm not with you because my fortune says so_ , but all he can do is stare, relieved, that Himuro didn't leave like he said he would (like he might keep saying he would, because this is a work in progress) even as the two of them stand there with bitten tongues and burning eyes, first waiting for the other one to cry.


	13. if i had a heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for [this](https://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/22341.html?thread=12690757#cmt12690757) prompt.

The court is quiet at night, different from how it'd be in the day, when and all the basketball idiots are out, willingly sweating under the sweltering sun. Right now it's just him, the dribble of rubber against concrete, and the relentlessness of his heartbeat in the silence.   
  
He fucking hates it. He thought he would've gotten used to it, from all those afternoons spent dozing on school rooftops or drowning in his own thoughts, but everything has changed.  _He_  has changed. Now he can't stand being in a room permeated by it, and it's what brought him here, at least not completely alone with a ball in his hands.   
  
At least he has the faint noises of traffic in the distance. At least he has the crickets. At least he isn't in an apartment where cruel words still hung in the air like shards of glass, like he could cut himself on them hours after the argument, if he isn't careful. Maybe he's being a coward about it all, reverting back to his old habits of avoidance and running away, but that's just another thing they have in common that's doing the opposite of bringing them together.  
  
Maybe that's just the thing. They're opposites who are too similar in the worst ways, knowing exactly where to push and prod for the most disastrous provocation.   
  
Because Himuro does exactly that, not even subconsciously—Aomine knows him well enough to be certain that everything he says is intentionally targeted. He doesn't necessarily have to mean them; he's just trying to see what the other person would do.   
  
And Aomine, despite knowing all this, still rises to the bait each time. Maybe it's a habit he'll never learn to break; maybe it'll just keep happening until they break for good.   
  
He's dribbling absentmindedly, ready to shoot, when the silence is disturbed by footsteps to his side. He glances in the direction of the sound and his hand goes slack, dropping the ball and letting it roll away, because the sight of Himuro in front of him is just that astonishing.   
  
Himuro's not supposed to give Aomine chase. He never has.  
  
(Never, it seems, until right now.)  
  
"I knew I'd find you here," he says, careful and tentative like Aomine might throw a tantrum again. Aomine's not that immature anymore, but he isn't so willing to surrender yet, either.   
  
"Yeah?" he says, purposely harsh. "That why you came?"  
  
Himuro shrugs, graceful with one shoulder. "It was too quiet at the apartment. Are you up for a match?"  
  
"Whatever." Aomine lets Himuro go after the ball, and this is almost nostalgic—this is how they'd first gotten acquainted outside of their mutual friends, how they'd resolved personality differences and misunderstandings. This recent fight, though, seems too big to fit in the criteria, but he guesses he could humor Himuro for a bit.  
  
If this is the last time.   
  
So they play, lit in varying shades of streetlamp and moonlight, Himuro still effortlessly beautiful when he aims. He gets a few shots in, but it's Aomine's game and always has been, so by the end when both of them are panting and bent over, Aomine's lead is so wide he'd stopped counting.   
  
"Daiki," says Himuro, his head still down, his face obscured, and Aomine thinks maybe he'd add the gap in their skills to his list of grievances (it wouldn't be out of character for him), but then, "I'm sorry."  
  
It's hardly been half an hour, and he manages to catch Aomine off guard again. Aomine's too speechless to reply, so Himuro keeps going.   
  
"I shouldn't have said—I knew it'd upset you, I just..."  
  
"I knew you knew," says Aomine, once he finds his voice. "Was a sucker for it anyway." Maybe he hadn't really changed at all.  
  
Himuro doesn't respond. He bites his lip instead, and even now, Aomine wishes he could do it for him.   
  
"I don't blame you," he goes on, that old indifference coloring his tone. "Just proves I'm too stupid for this, right?"   
  
Himuro's expression twists, as if Aomine had shoved one of those glass shards right to his heart. It's right then that Aomine wishes he could take it back, because those words had pushed them closer to an ending than he'd like, and whatever he'd said or thought or felt before this moment, he's not ready to let go of this, not now, maybe not ever.  
  
He starts to laugh, the way he does when his eyes start to burn. Himuro, still looking stricken, closes the distance between them by bowing Aomine's head to his shoulder, his palm a gentle weight on Aomine's nape. Aomine hears him sigh, so close to his ear.   
  
"You're not as impossible as you think you are, Daiki."   
  
Aomine sniffs, raising his arms slightly to wrap them around Himuro's waist. He doesn't say anything at all, hoping that somehow this embrace would be enough to convey that even if he runs, or wants to call it quits, he can always, always be persuaded to stay.


End file.
